Tranzinfo Resource and expertise sharing by the transport libraries of Australia

and New ZealandAndrew Meier, ARRB Group, AustraliaTransportation Librarians Roundtable

9 October 2008

2www.arrb.com.au

A brief Tranzinfo background

• Formed in the early 1990’s in Australia with later NZ involvement

• Currently approximately 20 active member libraries across government, academic and corporate sectors

• Steered by an annually elected committee of 3

• ARRB funding arrangement with governments across Australia includes providing Tranzinfo leadership

• Annual meeting – location on roster basis

3www.arrb.com.au

Library leadership activities

ARRB Library takes active role in the continued

development of the Tranzinfo network of transport

related libraries in Australia and New Zealand:

• Assisting with coordination of consortia purchasing by member libraries

• Expanding resource and knowledge sharing avenues

• Coordinating network-wide alert bulletins for distribution to member client bases

4www.arrb.com.au

Key Tranzinfo activities

• Hot Topics alert bulletins

• Automated interlibrary loan system

• Reference Group teleconferences

• Expertise sharing and Skills Bank

• Consortia purchasing

5www.arrb.com.au

Hot Topics

• Alert bulletins highlighting a selection of resources published in last 2 years on topic of current interest

• Production shared by roster system amongst members but overseen by editing team

• 15 issues plus 5 updates since 2005• Topics: Level crossing safety, PPPs, Alternative

fuels, Skills shortages, Transport disadvantage• Made available free on Tranzinfo website –

under Publications at www.tranzinfo.org• Actually markets the network to our client base

6www.arrb.com.au

Reference and alerting services

• Information request services and literature searches available for both ARRB staff and external clients

• Transport sector news alerting services provided to ARRB staff to keep them in touch with latest developments

7www.arrb.com.au

Tranzinfo ILL system

• Holdings information and ILL agreements operating for many years

• Since 2007, 16 member libraries have shared journal holdings on system that incorporates automated requesting of individual articles

• Around 380 requests in last 12 months• Began in 2008 to include conference

proceedings and now includes over 300 conference titles

8www.arrb.com.au

Reference Group teleconferences

• Began in 2007• Aim to connect reference service staff and

foster their professional development• Topics: Marketing within your organisation,

Web 2.0 for special libraries, Acquisitions tips & tricks

• Has led to greater communication across the network

9www.arrb.com.au

Expertise sharing

• Active email listservs – for general, reference and ill-related communications

• Recorded skills of member library staff • Member-only area Skills Bank on Tranzinfo

website• Library experience in subject area other

than transport – law, medicine, business information

• Language skills

10www.arrb.com.au

Consortia purchasing

• TRANSPORT database through Ovid • Prosentient InterSearch ILL system• Other opportunities reviewed each year at

annual meeting

11www.arrb.com.au

Why Tranzinfo works

• Small enough to achieve communication and cooperation

• Large enough to share workload and costs• Effectively has a paid leader – most

networks function in ‘spare’ time of library staff

12www.arrb.com.au

What’s on the way?

• Always looking for opportunities to expand our resource and knowledge sharing

• Initiatives must be within our means• Begun investigating collaborative reference

tools

13www.arrb.com.au

ARRB’s information initiatives

• Australian Transport Index (ATRI)A bibliographic database containing over 155,000 records of books, reports, journal articles, conference papers and electronic publications. Available online via subscription through Informit

• Transport and Road Update (TARU) Bibliographic alert bulletin. To become an

RSS feed service during 2009• Australian and NZ content provider to ITRD

14www.arrb.com.au

Contacts

Tranzinfo website: www.tranzinfo.orgATRI database information:

http://www.informit.com.au/indexes_ATRI.html

Andrew MeierT: +61 3 9811 1603Email: andrew.meier@arrb.com.au